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Data Daily review of Hacking H(app)iness
April 28, 2014

Special thanks to Vicky Sargent, Director of the Making a Difference with Data Programme for her extensive and thoughtful review of my book on the The Information Daily site. I never get over how jazzed I get when people read my work and take the time to let me know what they think of it. Yes, I'd love to get a zillion book sales but when I'm focusing on the important things I remember how huge it is for anyone to spend their time on anything these days. So if they spend it ruminating over your thoughts and your work, that's a huge deal.
I especially appreciated this paragraph from Vicky in the review:
This may all seem a long way from our shiny, high-tech, wired world, but Havens makes the connections for us. He shows how new ways of measuring, recording and analysing our physical and mental states (aka ‘the quantified self’) offer new ways of intervening, earlier and better, to improve individual well being. Collectively, it is what some policy-makers are starting to call ‘gross national happiness’.
A lot of people reading the book haven't focused on the connections I've tried to point out between measuring individual data and how that will affect economic policy. It's early days for quantified self (for the general public) and happiness economics, but our "little data" combined with "big data" means public policy already IS being created around this information and will only grow in scope. That's why it's so critical to measure yourself based on how you/your family wants your data to be shared so it can be used for positive means.
So thank you, Vicky!


